Zikula Community

• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 05:58 AM

  I'd like to gauge the community interest in a module that seamlessly integrates the Facebook API into Zikula. I've created one for my own purposes. I wrote up a little something about it at http://www.wickedviral.com/projects/zikula . I won't repeat everything here. Read that if you're interested in something like this and let me know what you think.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• HalbrookTech
  
  

  • Rank: Developer
  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
  • Last visit: Jun 01, 2010
  • Posts: 6859

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 06:55 AM

  IMHO, just do it, we've already had endless debate on the issue, it's wanted by some, vilified by others, just make it and don't worry about other's input as to it's value :)
  
  --
  Home Page | Find on Facebook | Follow on Twitter
  

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 07:17 AM

  Well, I already did it and am enjoying it myself. I just want to know whether it's worth my time and effort to get it ready for public release. I always see people saying "I'd pay for that!" when ideas like this are discussed. I want to see if anyone actually will. If they will, I'll take the time to get it ready, documented, etc. etc. etc. If not then for now I'll just use it for myself and my clients.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• rgasch
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Jan 05, 2003
  • Last visit: May 28, 2010
  • Posts: 776

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 07:48 AM

  Hi,
  
  I won't pay for it, but if it's Zikula API compliant (at least 1.2, 1.3 preferred) and readily installable on a standard Hosting package/server, I'd be willing you trade you a zWebstore (http://www.zwebstore.biz) license (or something else, I have some other modules which may be of interest) for it. If you wish to discuss this, I can be reached rgasch[at]gmail.com
  
  Greetings/Thanks
  Robert

  • 
  •  
• FiddleFaddle
  
  

  • Rank: Registered User
  • Registered: Mar 09, 2010
  • Last visit: May 26, 2010
  • Posts: 24

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 08:10 AM

  Assuming it's fairly priced, I'd buy it. And I know at least two others that would buy it also.
  
  
  
  edited by: FiddleFaddle, datetimebrief

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 09:31 AM

  Robert, thanks for the offer, but I already have my own e-commerce solution for Zikula. I've heard good things about yours, though. I won't release mine for the same reason I've been reluctant to release the Facebook stuff. There are two ways to do it:
  
  1. Release it for free. Makes little sense given that it gives me a competitive advantage to own it. I do this for a living. I'm not a hobbyist. And in my experience when you release stuff to the open source community, even for free, they start harping on you to add features, provide support, etc. That's not the business I'm in. If I knew for sure the community would adopt it and I could just walk away, adding my own input when I had the time and inclination to do so, it would be different. But that hasn't been my experience.
  
  2. Release it as a commercial module and charge a reasonable price for it. Makes little sense because what little money I'd make from licensing wouldn't come close to the cost of the number of hours of hand-holding support I'd be required to give in exchange for people's $20.
  
  So I guess what I'm trying to do here is invent a third way. When I release this, it'll be free. I'm not going to charge for licensing or any of that stuff. But here's what it'll require for me to actually do it:
  
  1. About a day and a half of modifying the code to work with Zikula out of the box, eliminating the requirement for non-standard libraries, etc. I've modified Zikula extensively for my own use and the module, as it is, won't work in most cases.
  
  2. About a day of documentation so that anyone can pick it up, install it, and use it.
  
  Whenever I think about doing those things, I decide I'd rather take my kid golfing or something like that with the little free time I have. But I've had several people ask me for it. So about the only thing I can tell them is this:
  
  Put your money where your mouth is. I don't care whether you throw in $5 or $50. Whatever it would be worth to you to see this done. If enough people throw in a few bucks, I'll stop what I'm doing and get it done. If not, then I'll send what I have to the few who do contribute along with some notes on what they'd need to do to make it usable.
  
  I guess one way to look at it is that I'm telling those who want this thing to hire me to do it. I'll require a retainer up front. The rest I trust people to kick in as they find the thing useful. The straight donation model doesn't work. God knows I've seen some great open source projects die because people love to take the free stuff but totally ignore that little donation box that's there to say thanks for all your hard work.
  
  So talk amongst yourselves. I'm fine either way. If enough users are willing to throw $5, $10, $20, or $50 at it to add up to a decent day's pay, I'll release it to the community. If only a few fork over any money, I'll throw it together quick and dirty for them and give them a hand getting it set up. If nobody contributes, I'll just keep using it to save myself time when creating sites for clients.
  
  If you want to throw a few dollars at it, the ChipIn widget on the page linked to in the original post lets you use PayPal to do so.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• craigh
  
  

  • Rank: Developer
  • Registered: Jun 16, 2003
  • Last visit: May 29, 2010
  • Posts: 1966

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 01:17 PM

  Can you tell me a little bit more about what it could do? I'm not familiar with the facebook API, but I'm interested and may be willing to donate to the cause if there was a feature list or something.

  • 
  •  
• jaenosjelantru
  
  

  • Rank: Moderator
  • Registered: Mar 15, 2005
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 1077

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 02:10 PM

  I'm with craigh.

  • 
  •  
• dks
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Feb 07, 2003
  • Last visit: May 31, 2010
  • Posts: 404

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 02:52 PM

  Yes please. Some details. Eta, expected remuneration, features, etc.

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 03:37 PM

  OK. Here's a quick rundown. As for the ETA... some of it is probably ready enough that I could package it up and release it over the weekend (the Connect component and probably the social plugins to some extent). The full thing could be done within 2 weeks because I only have about an hour or two a day to work on it. As for what I expect out of it or what sort of commitment I'm looking for, I set a $1000 ChipIn, but that's just because it asks you to set a number. I'll be honest. When I develop websites for clients, I bill almost that in a day. And this is one of the tools I use the most. So to the extent that releasing it would dilute my competitive advantage, that's actually a hell of a price. However, I am interested in releasing it for two reasons:
  
  1. It's not as good as I believe it would be if the community at large got its hands on it and pitched in some with the code.
  
  2. Having a few more developers become familiar with it would give me a pool of subcontractors that I sort of desperately need. I'm starting to get a backlog.
  
  I'm not saying I need $1000 to get started. I'm saying that's about what I'd like to end up with. If this works out, as Facebook continues to add features and I spend time updating the module, adding new functionality, creating demos, creating specific examples of creative ways to use it, etc., I'll probably keep up an ongoing donation campaign. As long as the community continues to show some love, I'll continue to share what I do. Again, I'm doing this anyway for my clients. So a few extra bucks would be an incentive to do what I'm doing with the larger community in mind (not hard-code things because it's faster, not use non-standard PHP libraries, etc.).
  
  So, with that in mind, here's as detailed a summary as I can give you:
  
  Facebook Connect - This API allows for a single-sign-on system using Facebook's user ID. A user authorizes Facebook to connect to the site. Then that user's information is passed back to the site where I (currently) parse it out into session variables for later use. This could be used to enhance or replace the registration / login functionality of Zikula as well as the profile module. It could even be used for content personalization, since a great deal of the user's Facebook profile information is shared between Facebook and the site. How that data can be used is pretty much limitless. How it should be stored is up for debate and one of the questions that I'm raising with the community. I like my session variables solution because it keeps the Facebook data in sync with my site's data and I have not run into any situations for myself or my clients where this is insufficient. However, I can think of several off the top of my head. So, some thought will have to go into alternative uses of user data. But we can talk about that.
  
  Social Plugins - These are simple. You don't need a Facebook module to use these. Anyone can copy and paste them. I've simply created some pnRender plugins to which you pass parameters so that they can be created dynamically. Take a look at http://www.wickedviral.com for an example of this. The Recommend button and the comment box are both populated with data from the News module. This replaces the Comments module or EZComments and has the added advantage of allowing the user to throw a link to your site up on his/her Facebook profile each time he/she comments. I'm not a huge fan of the way the entire system is implemented at Facebook, but within the parameters I'm given, it's proving to be useful.
  
  Graph API - This allows for a great deal of interaction between Facebook and a website. It uses JSON to parse very personalized data from Facebook into your website. So, for instance, if you have a website about movies, a user could recommend movies to his friends, see what friends have watched those movies, share ratings, etc. It expands the social capabilities of Facebooks seamlessly across the web. It's also a point of contention among Facebook users who aren't comfortable with that level of access to their information being shared among non-Facebook sites. However, as integration widens, people will become more comfortable with it. There are about 30 (I think) components of the API, each of which I will write into a pnRender plugin so that anyone can use this stuff without having to know anything about JSON, the Facebook API, or anything of that nature. Want a list of friends who are registered with the site? It'll be something like [fbfriends type=connected]. I write these as I need them for client sites, so I only have about 5 or 6 done, but since they all use a single class file, it's really a very simple process. They take me about 10 minutes apiece to knock out.
  
  My goal is to create a module with a full set of plugins that will allow you to place any Facebook content and functionality into any portion of a Zikula site with ease. Again, just visit my website at http://www.wickedviral.com to get an idea of some of the things it can do.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 26, 2010 - 03:41 PM

  Oh, and for a feature list (figure if it's here it will eventually be included), go to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web . There are two other sections of the API (applications and mobile) that I'm also developing because I'm going to use Zikula to host my Facebook applications (those that run on Facebook itself) and some of my clients would like their sites made a little more mobile-friendly. I don't know whether or not those will end up being released to the public, however, because:
  
  1. They're not terribly useful to most people.
  2. They're more complex and would be a support nightmare.
  3. In a few cases, I'm going to be really crunched for development time and will be taking shortcuts (like using non-standard PHP libraries).
  
  I may eventually roll those out as well, but for now I'm focusing on the website components of the Facebook API.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 27, 2010 - 01:03 PM

  As a proof of concept, I've thrown together a very stripped down version that everyone should be able to get to work that provides Facebook Connect functionality. It just reads the user's information into session variables. What you do from there is up to you. It's available now at http://www.wickedviral.com/downloads/facebook.zip .
  
  If you wish to contribute to the continued development of Facebook functionality for Zikula, you may do so at http://facebook4zikula.chipin.com/facebook-module-for-zikula
  
  I'll provide limited support for the module (not in-depth hand-holding, but I'll answer questions as I can). Just do it in the forum here so that I don't have to keep answering the same questions a bunch of times by e-mail.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 28, 2010 - 03:47 AM

  As a fun little exercise, I changed the way Facebook Connect is processed on http://www.wickedviral.com to show everyone, after they connect, exactly what information Facebook passes to the site about the user. If you're interested in what user data you would have to work with using Facebook Connect, go to that site and use the Login With Facebook button. Authorize the connection. After it processes, you will see the array of data print_r'ed out to you below the menu of things you can do now that you're connected.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
• rgasch
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Jan 05, 2003
  • Last visit: May 28, 2010
  • Posts: 776

  Posted: May 28, 2010 - 06:42 AM

  Quote

  Robert, thanks for the offer, but I already have my own e-commerce solution for Zikula.

  
  May I ask what you're using? I'm curious ...
  
  Greetings/Thanks
  R

  • 
  •  
• dreamingmonkey
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Nov 25, 2007
  • Last visit: May 30, 2010
  • Posts: 166

  Posted: May 28, 2010 - 06:50 AM

  I created something from scratch... sort of. I've modified Pagesetter extensively since development on it stopped because Pagemaster was taking too long to get ready for prime time when I needed something like it. I use that as the backbone. At this point, I basically just apply whichever of the various plugins and custom functions I've written to create a custom solution in a matter of hours.
  
  The problem I have with most e-commerce solutions (and grant you I haven't tried yours so I don't know if it's the case) is that in order to accommodate the vast array of options that store owner may want to use, they become amazingly complex. The initial setup of a Zen Cart store, for instance, takes about 3 days. 99% of the options are things I'll never use, but I have to weed through them anyway.
  
  When I develop for a client, I deploy only the components my client needs and make the interface as fast, easy, and intuitive as possible, all in an effort to keep my support burden to a minimum.
  
  --
  Help Now! Fast and affordable help for do-it-yourself webmasters from Wicked Viral :: Chicago's Only Web Development Firm Specializing in Social Networking Integration

  • 
  •  
•  
•  

Users on-line

• 0 users

This list is based on users active over the last 60 minutes.